Retrieving CDATA contents from XML using PHP and simplexml

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/120016

  •  02-07-2019
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Question

I have the following XML structure:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<course xml:lang="nl">
  <body>
    <item id="787900813228567" view="12000" title="0x|Beschrijving" engtitle="0x|Description"><![CDATA[Dit college leert studenten hoe ze een onderzoek kunn$
    <item id="5453116633894965" view="12000" title="0x|Onderwijsvorm" engtitle="0x|Method of instruction"><![CDATA[instructiecollege]]></item>
    <item id="7433550075448316" view="12000" title="0x|Toetsing" engtitle="0x|Examination"><![CDATA[Opdrachten/werkstuk]]></item>
    <item id="015071401858970545" view="12000" title="0x|Literatuur" engtitle="0x|Required reading"><![CDATA[Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Wi$
    <item id="5960589172957031" view="12000" title="0x|Uitbreiding" engtitle="0x|Expansion"><![CDATA[]]></item>
    <item id="3610066867901779" view="12000" title="0x|Aansluiting" engtitle="0x|Place in study program"><![CDATA[]]></item>
    <item id="19232369892482925" view="12000" title="0x|Toegangseisen" engtitle="0x|Course requirements"><![CDATA[]]></item>
    <item id="3332396346891524" view="12000" title="0x|Doelgroep" engtitle="0x|Target audience"><![CDATA[]]></item>
    <item id="6606851872934866" view="12000" title="0x|Aanmelden bij" engtitle="0x|Enrollment at"><![CDATA[]]></item>
    <item id="1478643580820973" view="12000" title="0x|Informatie bij" engtitle="0x|Information at"><![CDATA[Docent]]></item>
    <item id="9710608434763993" view="12000" title="0x|Rooster" engtitle="0x|Schedule"><![CDATA[1e semester, maandag 15.00-17.00, zaal 1175/030]]></item>
  </body>
</course>

I want to get the data from one of the item tags. To get to this tag, I use the following xpath:

$description = $xml->xpath("//item[@title='0x|Beschrijving']");

This does indeed return an array in the form of:

Array
(
    [0] => SimpleXMLElement Object
        (
            [@attributes] => Array
                (
                    [id] => 787900813228567
                    [view] => 12000
                    [title] => 0x|Beschrijving
                    [engtitle] => 0x|Description
                )
        )
)

But where is the actual information (that is stored between the item tags) located? I must be doing something wrong, but I can't figure out what that might be... Probably something really simple... Help would be appreciated.

Was it helpful?

Solution

When you load the XML file, you'll need to handle the CDATA.. This example works:

<?php
$xml = simplexml_load_file('file.xml', NULL, LIBXML_NOCDATA);
$description = $xml->xpath("//item[@title='0x|Beschrijving']");
var_dump($description);
?>

Here's the output:

array(1) {
  [0]=>
  object(SimpleXMLElement)#2 (2) {
    ["@attributes"]=>
    array(4) {
      ["id"]=>
      string(15) "787900813228567"
      ["view"]=>
      string(5) "12000"
      ["title"]=>
      string(15) "0x|Beschrijving"
      ["engtitle"]=>
      string(14) "0x|Description"
    }
    [0]=>
    string(41) "Dit college leert studenten hoe ze een on"
  }
}

OTHER TIPS

I believe its equivalent to the __toString() method on the object, so 

echo $description[0];

Should display it, or you can cast it;

$str = (string) $description[0];

Take a look at the PHP.net documentation for "SimpleXMLElement" (http://uk.php.net/manual/en/function.simplexml-element-children.php) it looks like converting the node to a string "(string)$value;" does the trick.

Failing that, there's plenty of examples on that page that should point you in the right direction! 

$description = $xml->xpath("//item[@title='0x|Beschrijving']");

while(list( , $node) = each($description)) {

echo($node);

}

dreamwerx's solution is better

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